Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Alternative Gifts

When I was listening to the Webinar about Greener Birthday Parties over the summer they suggested not giving a present to the birthday child, but something intangible. I'm looking for that this holiday season (ok, Christmas, since we've decided not to do Hanukkah and Kwanza gifts this year). Two years ago I had my mom give the kids lessons, Karate and Dance. The gift they opened was a Karate uniform (gi) and dance shoes, leotard and tights. My daughter is still doing dance and the karate was a fantastic learning experience, for all of us. I'm thinking about doing something similar this year as well, but including tickets of some sort, maybe. Clearly, this is still in the beginning stages. I thought about tickets to go snow tubing or something like that. I'm also thinking about ice skating lessons/with the actual gift being skates. I'm running out of room in my house for STUFF and my kids don't really want STUFF. My oldest told Santa he wants an electric pencil sharpener. So where I'm really stuck is with my two year old. He's too small to do the big kid stuff, like tubing and lessons. He has all the hand-me-downs from the older two, so even the "new" toys that are out this year, are pretty much a slight variation on the old toys that the other two have. If you ask him what he wants, he'll tell you gum and candy. Which at this point, may be all he's getting! So as I go about my day, I'm constantly trying to brainstorm ideas for what to get a two-year old, that's not STUFF.

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